Communication matters.

I had an opinion piece on the op-ed page of the Vancouver Sun in March, 2010 that sums up my views on social media in the workplace. (It's no longer available online, so I'm posting it below.)

Social Media Have a Role to Play in the Workplace

By Ron Shewchuk

During the Winter Olympic Games I was often reminded of the power of social networks to make connections that were unimaginable just a few short years ago.

Case in point: on the first day of the Games I was walking along Robson Street with some out-of-town guests when we caught sight of couple of giddy thrill-seekers hooting and flailing their arms and legs as they glided along the downtown zip line. I had heard the ride was free and I thought it might be fun for my guests’ teen-aged sons to give it a try. So I pulled out my smart phone and posted this on my twitter feed: “Does anyone know how long the wait is for the Robson zip line?”

Within a few minutes the operator of the ride tweeted back: “Thanks for your interest. Right now the lineup is about three hours long. If you want to try tomorrow, the zip line is open at 8.00 a.m.” Amazing.

In the space of four years, social networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have become woven into the fabric of our society. A recent study of global internet use by Universal McCann reported some astounding statistics: over 60 per cent of internet users have a profile on a social network. Over 80 per cent view videos on YouTube, and close to 30 percent don’t just watch – they’ve uploaded videos to the web for others to see.

This stuff is no longer in the realm of computer geeks and teenagers. Today the majority of internet users read and comment on blogs and new sites, listen to audio or video podcasts, share photos online using sites like Flikr, and regularly turn to services like Yelp and TripAdvisor to get user reviews of restaurants or vacation destinations.

This broad adoption of social networks is profoundly changing the way people find and share information. It’s also creating powerful online communities that can stage activist campaigns, lead consumer revolts and even influence the outcome of elections.

So why isn’t the same thing happening at work, where we spend most of our waking hours? With only one in five of today’s employees fully committed to their jobs and companies struggling to motivate a cynical, disengaged workforce, one would think there would be a rush to build social networks at work. Yet many companies still ban them.

Businesses are worried that employees will waste company time on “social notworking,” or they’ll share confidential information, or do something stupid online that will damage the company’s reputation. They are also concerned that installing social networks will cost time and money with no measurable return on their investment.

And yet despite these issues, social media are slowly being put to use by some leading companies. These early adopters have taken the risks and made the mistakes that beginners make. In the process, they have found many useful, practical applications of the new tools and technologies, from business-friendly equivalents of Twitter and YouTube to full-blown in-house social networks where employees can create their own profile, keep up to date with their work mates, rate and comment on company news, and collaborate on projects.

The early adopters have found that issues of productivity and security can be addressed with clear policies, sound planning and disciplined implementation. And the cost of using these new online tools is low, and often free of charge.

So, what does this all mean for employers who find themselves behind the curve?

Successfully implementing the new tools and technologies of what’s been dubbed “Web 2.0” will require new ways of thinking about the role of employee communications in today’s organization. Traditionally, management has been the keeper and careful disseminator of company news and information, but business communication is now moving inexorably to a model where employees will have the power to create their own content, customize information according to their needs, and build their own internal networks and online communities.

Web 2.0 promises to be a powerful new way to engage employees and improve the effectiveness of today’s organization. It’s time for the workplace to invite social media to be its online friend.

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Ron Shewchuk is a North Vancouver-based business consultant who helps companies communicate with their employees. He was also the host of RonCon 2010, a conference about employee engagement and social media held in Vancouver March 22 – 24 and in Calgary March 24-26. Find out more about Ron at www.ronshewchuk.com.

I have the honour of sitting on a panel of IABC Master Communicators today to discuss the future of our profession. The discussion will be led by one of Canada's leading communicators, Jacqui d’Eon, Deloitte Canada’s Chief Communications Officer and IABC's 2008 Master Communicator.

The theme is "Are Communicators Still Relevant -- Or Have We Become Disposable?"

The panelists were asked to contribute two or three minutes of commentary to help kick off the discussion. Here are my notes:

I believe there is a crisis of confidence in our profession, at least on the internal side.

We’ve been through a very dark time over the last decade, a time in which employee engagement has declined and digital communication tools have proved to be far less effective than expected.

This is a time of great change and opportunity for employee communicators, but I worry that we might not be not up to the challenge.

I worry that many of us are trapped in our roles as technical/tactical specialists -- constantly posting, posting, posting to intranets that don’t get read and don’t get measured.

I worry that we’ve forgotten how to offer strategic advice, or how to effectively say no to stupid instructions from our leaders (and offer them thoughtful alternatives).

I worry that, at time that calls for leadership and action, we are so paralyzed by our habits, stifled by the bureaucracies in which we work, and fearful about the security of our own jobs, that we are doing nothing where we should be doing something.

I worry that we’ve forgotten about the basics of the old RACE formula (research, analysis, communication, evaluation) and we’ve become entrenched in our role as order-takers and crisis responders.

And I worry that the new social media tools, which reduce the need for intermediaries like us, could speed the erosion of our strategic importance.

I always say the more you worry about something, the less likely it is to happen. So in the end I’m optimistic about the future of employee communication, and here's why:

We’ve got powerful new tools that have uses we haven’t even begun to explore.

There’s growing interest and attention by corporate leaders in improving engagement, because there’s hard evidence linking engagement to bottom line business performance.

Put Web 2.0 technology together with the burning need to improve engagement, and you have a big opportunity to rebuild a new kind of loyalty -- a new kind of corporate culture based on the creation and support of strong internal communities.

There has never been a better time to make the business case for improving internal communication.

A once-in-a-generation opportunity is right in front of us and we must seize it now.

In a recent blog post, techno pundit Robert X. Cringely uses Susan Boyle's stunning performance on Britain's Got Talent (sitting at 37 million views as I'm writing this) to illustrate the power of the Internet to create shared experiences.

"Marshall McLuhan, who seems smarter every day, called it The Global Village. He said communication technology would link us together in
ways we couldn’t imagine and those ways would lead to common
experiences and shared values. McLuhan didn’t know about the Internet
when he wrote that and he sure as Hell didn’t know about Twitter. But
his prediction came true.....[And] every time our Global
Village comes together in this way, it’s because of a shared delight
that makes us feel more alike and less apart. We could all use more of that."

Are today's communicators helping create meaningful shared experiences in the workplace? Or are we too busy shoveling information onto intranets that no one wants to read?

Sadly, the only true shared experience in many big organizations is the frustration of dealing with bureaucracy.

I love the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's national radio and TV broadcaster. The CBC's iconic Hockey Night in Canada, world-class news machine, generous arts and entertainment programming, regular weather reports and updates on hog prices provide Canadians with much of the shared experience that makes us a viable country. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but if you're a Canuck you'll know it's true. The CBC defines who we are as a nation. (By the way, the best thing to ever come out of the CBC is The Great Eastern, a brilliantly obscure satirical program that only a Mother Country could love.)

Yesterday the Corpse, as it's called by those who love to hate it, announced across-the-board job cuts that will eliminate 800 positions as the broadcaster tries to cope with a huge shortfall in TV advertising. The crisis is partly due to the current recession, and partly due to the decline of traditional media that's being precipitated by the mass exodus of ad money to the World Wide Web.

For some, this decline is a good thing because it signals the ascendancy of a new paradigm. Information consumers are relying less on conventional sources of content and more on the blossoming world of Web 2.0, where the "user community" generates and shares information for its own benefit, thereby reducing the need for traditional gatekeepers and content producers like the CBC.

As the broken media model spins out of control, journalists are being thrown out of their jobs faster than buggy whip testers.

The corporate world may end up being one of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend because, unlike decaying traditional news media, big companies are on the edge of a renaissance of sophisticated internal communication. It's a revolution being driven by the introduction of Web 2.0 tools into the workplace. Blogs, wikis, social networks and audio and video podcasts are on the edge of full-blown adoption, about to supplant the rusty, dusty intranets of old with an interactive new model that allows for extremely sophisticated communication at an affordable price.

The technology is ready. Management is almost ready to embrace it. Communication managers are seeing the first signs of a Golden Age of employee communication. The fun is finally coming back to our field.

There's one thing lacking, though, and that's writers and editors and producers and camera people who have the skills needed to tell great stories with sound and pictures.

If I were working in a broadcast medium today, I would be keeping my eye out for a career change. If I were a big corporation, I would be looking to hire great broadcasters to bring their valuable skills and experience into my world.

If they play their cards right, the folks getting kicked out of the CBC (and
other electronic media) should be able to walk out of a dying business
model and into the opportunity of a lifetime.

I've had a chance to reflect on my recent speaking (and cooking) engagements in Houston and Toronto and thought I'd share some of my observations with FYA readers:

IABC members are kind, hospitable, intelligent folks who treat me like a member of their family wherever I go. Which was particularly satisfying in Houston, considering that I staged an unusual barbecue demonstration for a group of TEXANS. Yikes! I'm lucky I made it out of there with my tongs intact. (See the photos here and the local coverage here.)

Everybody in our profession is thinking and talking about the exciting and anxiety-inducing world of social media -- and lots are also diving in, too. A show of hands revealed that at least 80 or 90 per cent of the big crowd who turned up to see my IABC Toronto talk are twittering. Which is a good sign, even if twitter may not turn out to be The Next Big Thing, because ...

Exactly NONE of the 40 or so very smart HR people I talked to the next morning at a Conference Board of Canada HR conference are trading tweets. That spells opportunity for the more Web 2.0-savvy communicators, who can use their hands-on experience to help bring their HR colleagues and senior executives on board.

Or maybe the IABC group's twitter mania is an indication of just how desperate employee communicators are to get on the latest technological bandwagon so they can escape their nightmarish day-to-day existence maintaining outdated, clunky intranets and dealing with skittish, change-averse leaders who drive them crazy with their old-school ideas. Just kidding!

Which brings me to a final anecdote. It's from the last day of my Toronto trip, at a half-day in-house workshop I delivered to the communications team of a big insurance company. Thisstinging observation came from the intranet manager: "The kids coming into our workplace today can do more on their cell phones than on our intranet." That statement alone should be a wake-up call for communicators and business leaders everywhere.

[Special thanks to my many generous hosts, and to Toronto's William Smith and Houston's Chris Salvo for the great photos!]

This recent Q&A with British Telecom's Richard Dennison on Steve and Cindy Crescenzo's Creative Communications website is a must-read for communicators interested in finding out about the best internal applications of social media. I particularly liked this advice from Dennison:

"Start small, experiment, don't say you are trying to change the world,
don't necessarily wait for permission. If you don't spend much you can
do quite a lot before people start asking questions—and by then, it
will probably be too late! Proceed until apprehended!"

I was chatting with a former work colleague last week about the old days, when communicators pitched management on installing intranets during a period of corporate cutbacks.

"Back then, the only way we could make a business case for intranets was to stop doing print publications," she said. The long-term savings on printing and paper costs justified the big initial expense of establishing intranet portals. After the one-time technology investment, which could be booked as a capital cost, all you'd ever have to do was post new information at no additional expense. What a great solution! And so modern!

It was, of course, a Faustian pact, which ended up leading to the miserable state of affairs we have today, with a disenfranchised workforce, decaying employee engagement, and intranets that might as well have tumbleweeds blowing through them.

Fast forward to today. With recessionary forces at play, it looks like we're in for a major down cycle, which means cost-cutting will once again be in fashion. But with no print publications to chop, how will employee communications be affected? At times like this, big organizations throttle back. Which means that daring advances in employee communication will be put on hold, right?

I'm thinking, this time, maybe not. Towers Perrin survey results released today reveal that employers may pay a little more attention to the care and feeding of employees during the current downturn than they did in the past.

"The commitment to the retention of key talent
is a significant shift from past national recessionary periods, when a
slash-and-burn mentality reigned," said Ravin
Jesuthasan, Managing Principal in Towers Perrin's
Chicago office and a leader of the firm's
Rewards and Performance Management practice globally. "Companies
are entering this period with leaner workforces and the knowledge that
across-the-board mass layoffs can create significant long-term problems."

This time, the more enlightened employers are going to see the current situation as an opportunity to hold on to their best people and strengthen their internal cultures -- to apply some extra glue to keep themselves together during this difficult period so they will be stronger when the come through the other side.

Employee communications can be that glue, that connective tissue. Smart leaders will understand that, and smart communicators will be able to sell what needs to be done in those terms instead of finding new ways to apply the hatchet.

I was reminded the other day of the importance of the words "no" and "yes" in internal communications, and the even greater importance of knowing how, and when, to say them.

Here are some nos I'd like the hear more often:

No, we can't include that 200-word sentence in the story because it doesn't make sense.No, we shouldn't keep that critical fact from employees because they already know it.No, we'd better not paint too positive a picture because employees can smell bullshit a mile away.No, the company shouldn't impose that new policy without consulting with employees.No, I won't put a picture of your damned cat in the employee newsletter.

And so on. You gotta draw the line. The problem is, the more we say no, the more managers think employee communicators are not much more than bureaucratic obstacles to communicating. We're often seen to have these weird highfalutin standards that show we don't understand the business or the true culture of the organization.

And so, to avoid being viewed as stonewalling bureaucrats, we get in the habit of saying yes to things we shouldn't, like,

Yes, I'll publish that insanely cold, jargony, meaningless message to employees.Yes, it's just fine that you didn't consult me before you made that stupid, morale-destroying decision.Yes, I'll do exactly what you tell me, and I really don't mind being told what to do.Yes, we don't have to do any meaningful follow-up on those lousy employee survey results.Yes, it's just fine to eliminate our flagship print publication.

You get the idea.

Of course, there are effective ways to say no that don't include the word no and don't necessarily make a bad impression. In the end, the key to being an effective communicator isn't whether you say yes or no, but rather whether you approach your job with integrity -- and whether you help solve an organization's problems in a way that earns you trust, confidence and respect.

I'm delighted to report that I'm going to Australia next month! First stop will be Melbourne, to deliver a conference session and an all-day employee communications workshop at the 2nd Annual Public Relations Summit, organized by Frocomm Australia. At the Summit I'll also be hauling out my Rockin' Ronnie persona and firing up the grill to put on my trademark Communication Cookout for local IABC chapter members (except I'll be grilling pumpkin and lamb instead of asparagus and Alberta beef).

It will be an action-packed week. I'll also be speaking to the students at Deakin University School of Communication Arts. Deakin Lecturer Ross Monaghan is the kind soul who put my book on the reading list of his course, PR Writing and Tactics, and connected me with the good folks at Frocomm.

After Melbourne it's off to Sydney, where I'll be doing a luncheon speech for the local IABC chapter.

I'm so excited! I've never been to Australia but I know it's got lots great communicators, including one of my favorite new media commentators, Lee Hopkins.

Call me an aging communication nerd. I passed up watching the Oscars last Sunday to judge the Intranet feature and internal blog categories for the Ragan Recognition Awards.

I also spent a couple of evenings last week helping judge the publications category of IABC’s Gold Quill Awards. (It's heartening to note that the publications category still draws the most entries -- our group in Vancouver had over 120 publications to judge.)

I always jump at the chance to be a judge in communication award competitions. It’s a rare chance to take a close look at the work of other communicators – to see the kinds of challenges they’re facing and the solutions they come up with. I always learn something from my experience, and this awards season is no exception. So here, in no particular order, are some observations:

1. When it comes to internal blogging, we’re still very much in the early days. Ragan received only two entries in the new category. They were both impressive and engaging, but also rudimentary and experimental. The communicators who put them together knew they would be learning as they went, and the blogs they initiated, although rough around the edges, reflected a positive, pioneering spirit. One of the measures of a good blog is whether it generates lots of comments, and by that measure the ones I judged were great, if somewhat clunky, successes. Interestingly, both blogs were written by communication staff members and not rank and file employees or executives. Both were quite transparent attempts to simply start a conversation by putting issues on the table and then inviting readers to comment. And comment they did, with some posts attracting close to 100 comments. Some good lessons for anyone considering starting an internal blog:

Initially at least, expect a flurry of comments that don’t necessarily stay on the subject being discussed.

You may also get a certain amount of bitching and complaining as people take advantage of having a new internal forum to voice their irritations with their employer and their workplace.

Allowing anonymous postings tends to encourage comments, but here’s a good rule – if you’re allowing a mix of attributed and anonymous comments, allow immediate, unedited posts for those willing to identify themselves, and moderated posts for anonymous contributors.

The blogs I saw had effective self-regulation. Comments that are out of line (rude, unreasonable, confusing) get shouted down, with different degrees of politeness, by other readers.

Set out clear, sensible guidelines when you start the blog so everyone knows what to expect, and what’s expected of them one of the blogs I judged did a great job of laying out the ground rules.

2. There’s a lot of great writing on Intranets, but how much of it is being read? I was amazed by how much some of the writers could get done in a short Intranet feature. At this point Intranets are relatively mature channel and the entries I saw were quite effective in telling interesting and relevant stories. My biggest concern is that so much good work gets done on these things, and no one is reading them. If you’re trying to keep your Intranet content “fresh,” that means you’re highlighting articles on your portal for only a day or two, or sometimes a week, before they’re buried by other content and then relegated to some kind of archive. Readers of this blog know I’m passionate about this: it’s a crying shame that so many companies have abandoned the extremely effective print medium, which is still one of the best ways of sharing information with employees and creating a sense of community at work.3. You don’t have to look good to be good. I’m big on using great design and compelling photos to help get information across to employees. And I know there’s a disheartening amount of really crappy looking publications out there, with tiny photos, bad typography, amateurish writing and so on. But one of the publications that I judged looked about as bad as a desktop published newsletter can look – but it succeeded because it had clear communication goals and delivered on them. On a shoestring budget, an editor who had to do triple duty as writer, photographer and layout person managed to strike a chord with readers and influence bottom-line results.4. Anecdotes and quotes are perhaps the two most powerful things in written communication. Stories that have them, sing. Those that don’t, sink. I was reminded of this with every item I judged. There’s really no better way to make an article come alive than to focus on an individual who is experiencing change first hand. Tell that personal story, using the subject’s own words, and you will be a better communicator.